


vanish with the sunrise spark

by thisstableground



Series: less than ninety degrees [23]
Category: Do No Harm (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:52:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22164367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground
Summary: It was two years ago today that Ruben lost everything.
Relationships: Ruben Marcado/Usnavi (In the Heights)/Vanessa (In the Heights)
Series: less than ninety degrees [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/713601
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	vanish with the sunrise spark

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: this one is about Jamaica anniversary, so it's very PTSD heavy with talk of past abuse, and also Ruben talks about suicidal impulses and potential suicide methods (though with no real intention to attempt it). Also some minor accidental-ish self-harm in the form of skin-picking/scratching.

_Extra kick and then some, the comedown hits hard and never fades because after the rave all the days converge to one from comedown to sleepless to escape. The only thing he always knows is when it’s 8:25. It’s gone 8:25, Ian’s handcuffed to a radiator, Ruben’s been awake three days straight but he’s got to survive the night before he can rest. All roads converge to dead end except the one he’s taking now, skipping town Jamaica-bound seeking safety in the sun. He only needs to make it to morning._

His body knows before his brain. Comes in waves, goes in waves, his thoughts like an ear to a seashell echo lowly the soft lapping of water on a shoreline far away. Like a tide, like the tightening of thread in a seam, pulled towards the door every night checking too often that it’s locked, towards the clock every evening. The sight of eight twenty-five always feels wrong, but recently just the eight is enough to make him shiver, and then seven starts to catch him glancing back every few minutes too, dreading the changeover to the hour.

Ruben’s brain finally catches on at the end of class on Friday, checking his schedule for next week and seeing he’s got two days vacation blocked out, booked at the very start of the year and totally forgotten until now.

“ _Shit_ ,” he says to himself, louder than is appropriate in front of a class. Everyone looks up at him.

“Dr Marcado?”Carlos asks. “Something wrong?”

Ruben checks the clock. 5:11.

“Nothing, never mind,” he says briskly, subtly sliding his fingers up his sleeve and relieved to find his skin dry, no slick slide of blood. “I just forgot about something important. Make sure to have your lab reports completed by Tuesday, DrFrankswill be covering so send any questions to her. I’ll see you all next Friday.”

He makes it to his office to get his stuff by 5.23. Almost three hours and still feels like he’s cutting it fine. Home by seven if the subway’s not delayed. Shit, but he told Usnavi they’d get take-out at Vanessa’s tonight. Rain check.

“Sorry, Abi, I’m in a hurry tonight,” he says before she can start up a conversation, and starts riffling through his desk for next week’s notes. “The third years are all ready for Tuesday labs, there shouldn’t be anything you can’t handle there, all the supplemental stuff for my Monday classes is in _this_ folder, and my out-of-office is on from now until Wednesday so if there’s a problem that’s the absolute earliest I’ll be able to deal with it.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Abigail says. “I think I can handle a couple days of cover. Going anywhere nice on your long weekend?”

“No,” Ruben says. 5:25. He needs to leave _now_. “Definitely not.”

***

 **Usnavi:  
** \- you know him, he says he’s just tired  
\- but it feels like a Thing

 **Vanessa:** **  
**\- how bad?

 **Usnavi:** **  
**-7/10? nothings exploded but idk where his head’s at, his attention span is worse than mine rn

 **Vanessa:** **  
**\- oof, sounds like a 10 to me

 **Usnavi:  
** -plus he blew off our friday plans and didnt stay over at all this weekend :( bed is lonely  
\- if it goes on much longer ill have to buy two of those body pillows w pictures of you both to fulfil my needs

 **Vanessa:** **  
**\- hope theyre machine washable

 **Usnavi:  
** \- i meant g-rated hugging needs!!! ffs youre so gross man  
\- but what should i do  
\- about our boy not about my cuddle withdrawal

 **Vanessa:** **  
**\- listen to your heart

 **Usnavi:  
** \- :|  
\- so you don’t know then

 **Vanessa:**  
\- sorry, babe. i got nothin

 **Usnavi  
** \- ima try talkin to him again tomorrow  
\- last time he was like this it turned out he was textin w jason soooo

 **Vanessa:  
** \- it wont be that again, he wouldn’t risk him coming back after what he did  
\- ruben wouldnt do anything that put you in danger

 **Usnavi:** **  
**\- si but would he put himself danger if he thought we wouldnt find out?

 **Vanessa:** **  
**\- you should talk to him tomorrow

***

_Promises made to keep it a secret and Ruben doesn’t go back on his word even to the end, but there’s a hundred faces he stares into hoping they’ll know without him speaking - see me, why can’t you see me, why can’t you see there’s something wrong here? There’s nothing of recognition from the crowds he was dragged through unseen, until he’s forced visible to skin and blood and soul, and if help is too much to hope for after this all he’ll ever wish is to be invisible._

Picking at it won’t help, as his mama’s always told him. Ruben presses his fingertips down hard into his arm and drags them downwards, the fainter scars fading as his skin blanches under the pressure and coming back immediately when he releases. If anything it should be easier, time taking it further distant in the rearview. He still survived. He still has the life he built from new foundations. He still feels like he’s back in that room and doesn’t remember how he got himself out of it.

Ma is asleep by now. She’ll be at work tomorrow and won’t be able to talk with him all day like last year. He told her he’d be fine, he’s got other people to help him now, didn’t mention that he hasn’t actually told them what tomorrow is. Or what tonight is, technically.

Picking at it won’t help. Sleep would definitely help, but every time he lies down the mattress underneath him turns into metal, the empty room around him smells of blood and smoke, so he sits on the floor instead. He hasn’t eaten since lunch but he lets hunger gnaw him dizzy while he scrolls up and down his contacts list from Usnavi to Vanessa and back again. They would help. They’d _want_ to. He can’t ask them. Things should be different and they should be better now and Ruben should be more than the broken thing he is.The longer he waits the more he needs them here and the less he can call them till he slams the phone down on the floor in useless anger: the already-cracked screen crunches, dropping a few shards when he picks it up to check the damage.

Fuck it all. He beats the phone into the ground, into the wall beside him, till it’s shattered so completely he couldn’t call anyone even if he wanted to, then he throws the useless casing aside and picks some glass out of the side of his thumb, sucking on the cut with his eyes closed so he doesn’t have to look at the blood.

Usnavi’s only half an hour train ride away, he’d come running if Ruben asked. Vanessa might still be online at this time, she’d talk to him. There’s no point pretending he’s gonna tell them. If he wants them hard enough, maybe they’ll know without being told. If he feels it hard enough surely everyone else can feel it too, radiating: remember how the air tasted, remember the way it felt? Remember how much it hurt? 

It still hurts, a pain like he’s cracking open across the numbness of the deeper, raised scars. He rubs at his arms, trying to scrub the marks out of his skin with the heel of his hand, then his fingernails. Two years, and they’re faded white from pink and not likely to ever fade more, they’re never gonna get better than this. Ruben will never be more than this. He wants to sleep. He wants to die. He wants to rip his skin off and let his soul crawl out of the wreckage to find a new clean body to live in, one that he can keep safe and locked away and untouched because he knows better this time, he’s learnt.

***

** Usnavi **

Usnavi’s just finished the cereal part of his breakfast - knock-off Lucky Charms eaten dry and straight out the bag, that real food kick he was on couldn’t last - and is busy tossing the marshmallows he’d set aside into the air to try and catch in his mouth when his phone rings.

He answers without looking at caller ID, hits himself in the cheek with a marshmallow and says “yo, you got Usnavi.”

“Are you with him?” the caller asks, breathlessly.

“Estefanía?” Usnavi double-checks ID to make sure. Why the hell is Ruben’s mom calling him before eight in the morning? “Is something going on? Are you and the girls alright?”

“It’s Rubén,” she says.

Shit. Usnavi’s already heading to the closet, stripping out of his pajamas as he goes. “¿Qué pasa?”

“H-he said he’d call at seven, but he didn’t and his phone is turned off and I left three messages that he hasn’t responded to and — Usnavi, Rubén _always_ calls when he says he will except for when…when…“ she breaks off into stifled crying.

“Okay, don’t panic,” he soothes, the phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder as he pulls on his jeans. “I bet he just forgot to charge his phone. If we give it fifteen minutes he’ll be at work and we can call him there."

“Rubén isn’t at work today,” she says, slowly, and Usnavi's stomach drops. “Didn’t…didn’t you know that?”

“What? No, he didn't say anything. _What_?! Why isn’t he at work? What the hell’s going on?”

“He said he’d tell you. It was today that he went missing. Two years today.”

“Fuck!” Usnavi mutters. He knows better than most how hard an anniversary can hit. Some days stay scratched into your soul forever. “Fuck, okay, I’ll go get him right now, I’ll let you know when I’m with him. Don’t worry, he’ll be safe with me, Estefanía, I swear.”

He hangs up without waiting for an answer. Nothing is important except for getting to Ruben as fast as possible.

_***_

_Near death should awaken with relief under gentle medication, IV in the arm to keep it numb, surrounded by loved ones. It’s how it works on TV._ _Later, Ruben will try to rewrite it in his mind to how it should have been, but he never manages to fool himself that he was anything other than alone, abandoned, watching blood dark-blueish in the night illuminate to deep scarlet under the early sunrise._

Near death should reawaken surrounded by loved ones. Ruben doesn’t even know if he slept or if he’s dreaming or if he’s dead but wherever he is, his mama’s not here, no matter how many times he tries calling out to her - “ayúdame, me duele, me duele, I don’t want to die like this!”

This time, he gets an answer: “No vas a morir, mi querido, estás a salvo. Aquí estoy, estàs a salvo conmigo.”

Language right. Voice wrong. The confusion alone pulls him back towards the present, where Usnavi’s crouching a distance away, hands held open to show there’s nothing in them.

“Usnavi?” Ruben says, pushing himself upright. Movement comes like a lagging cursor on a screen, dragging slow and out of sync. So does speech. “You f-f—, you f— goddammit! You found me? How?”

“Your mom called me when you didn’t answer her this morning. I guess that explains why,” Usnavi says, indicating the shattered phone a few feet to Ruben’s other side. “Mi corazón, why didn’t you _tell_ us? You shouldn’t have to do this on your own.”

“I’m fine,” Ruben says, against all evidence. “Ian isn’t gonna let me die, he knows I might still be useful, if I can—“ he grabs at his wrist, a useless tourniquet. “—fuck, I need, I need stitches! I-I-I have to stop th-the bl- the bleeding.”

He looks around frantically for something to work with. Wasn’t there a nurse here with him a minute ago? Isn’t he outside a clinic? There’s something wrong with what he’s saying, Ruben knows it, in his soul and from the way Usnavi’s face is briefly puzzled and frightened.

“Well,” Usnavi says, cautiously, “you _have_ kinda scratched yourself up there, but no stitches. Not this time.”

It’s a lie. It must be a lie, Ruben’s tripped himself back into a memory of dying a million times through the night catching sight of the flecks of blood on his arms. When he looks now though he can see it’s only pinprick red like an eczema rash where he’s been picking at it. No stitches. Nothing compared to what he’s already got. He prods at the irritated skin, then fits his fingernails back into one set of small crescent-shaped gouges.

“Oh, hey, come on, don’t do that,” Usnavi says, reaching for him.

“ _Don’t,_ ” Ruben snaps. Usnavi’s hands hold up in instant surrender, and Ruben still shudders even though there’s whole feet between them. “Don’t touch me. And what does it matter? It’s just scratches. It won’t kill me.”

“It still matters. Please, I’m gonna help you but you really gotta stop doing that.”

“It won’t kill me,” Ruben repeats, scratching over the numb stretch of one of the deeper scars where surface sensation is always dulled. Everything is dulled. What does it matter, any of it? He’s so fucking tired. “I’ve got limited options there. Can’t even leave the apartment, so it’s not like I could jump off a roof or in front of a train or any of the easy choices.”

“Ain’t that a relief,” Usnavi says. His teeth are gritted, the words strained through it.

“I don’t think I could do it with a knife.”

“You’re not going to do it at all. Can you—”

“I suppose there’s always painkillers. I’ve got enough.”

“Bueno,” Usnavi says, with a manic forced calm. “I’ll get rid of them. Look, I can get one of your fidgets or something, if —”

“It’s a slow way to go, liver toxicity. Nasty stuff. Takes a couple of days,” Ruben says, but _why_ is he saying it? He doesn’t want to die, or at least he’s pretty sure he doesn’t, and Usnavi’s here right now without Ruben even having to ask him, he and Vanessa have always been there against all expectations. Ruben’s two years past being helped, and so fucking angry that he feels like he’s losing his mind. “You might find me before it had chance to kill me completely, but probably you’d be too late for them to do anything.”

Usnavi goes deadly pale, drops out of his crouch with his knees thudding loudly to the floor like he’s been pushed. “Stop it! I don’t—stop _saying_ this shit, you’re scaring me, and for fuck’s sake, Ruben, _please_ stop scratching yourself!

He grabs at Ruben’s hand.

“No!” Ruben gasps, twisting away and kicking out wildly with no idea if it lands. “No, fuck you, get away from me, get the _fuck_ away from me!”

Disconnected from any comprehension of it, he can hear babbling apologies, _lo siento lo siento mucho lo siento_ all in tearful Spanish and that seems like it should mean something but it doesn’t. All Ruben cares about is that for the first time whatever he’s saying is working, because Ian was there grabbing his arm and now hes let go of him, he's backing away, he won’t come back as long as Ruben keeps fighting, as long as he doesn’t let him touch him again.

***

** Vanessa **

Nothing good ever comes of being woken up by a phone call. Scratch that, nothing good comes of being woken up at all, especially not when it’s still dark out, and _very_ especially not by a phone call.

“Cállate,” Vanessa says to the screen. It’s Usnavi. Ugh. She can’t exactly ignore him. “Shit. Goddammit. Hey, babe.”

“I fucked up,” Usnavi says. See? Morning calls, always bad news. “I _really_ fucked up.”

“The hell d’you do this early?” she asks, rubbing her eyes. “S’barely even today yet.”

Usnavi takes a deep breath and—is he _crying?_ Vanessa sits up. “Usnavi?”

“¡No quise hacerlo!” he says, his voice telltale high. “Vanessa, I didn’t know what else to do, he didn’t even _tell_ us and I think he’s been awake all night, I just wanted to _help_ , I told her he’d be safe with me but he was saying all this shit and I didn’t want him to get hurt and-and I made everything so much worse!”

“Usnavi! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she says. He’s talking so loud that she finds herself near-shouting too. “Tell me what’s goin’ on. Slowly.”

“Ruben,” he says. “Jamaica, it was two years ago, it was today. Estefanía called me to check in on him.”

Vanessa’s speechless for a moment. Now that Usnavi says it, obviously it had to be one day out of the year but somehow she never quite thinks of that day as something that occurred in the same reality that they live in. It's something that exists in a vacuum, the idea that there was a time when it was something that was happening, not something that already happened is incomprehensible. She forgets too often that all those scars had to start off as wounds.

“How bad is it?” she asks, timidly.

“You know how incredibly terrible a ten is?”

“Yeah?”

“Welcome to eleven.”

“I need coffee for this,” Vanessa mutters. As she stumbles out to the kitchen. Nina pokes her head out of her door, her face scrunched up with sleepy curiosity, mouthing _¿qué pasa?_ Vanessa must’ve woken her up talking so loud. She waves her off and Nina disappears back into her room with a shrug.

“So what did _you_ do that you’re so upset about?” Vanessa asks once the coffee’s on.

“I…” Usnavi hesitates for a long time before quietly mumbling, “I grabbed his arm. Didn’t go well.”

“Seriously? Qué demonios, dude, that’s like Ruben 101!”

“Yeah, I know, okay? But you didn’t see what he was like, he’s scratched his arms all to hell and smashed his phone up, and he kept saying all this fucked-up stuff about if he took a bunch of pills I’d find him too late and I thought, what if I’d come in this morning and he’d. Y’know.“

“Oh, _Usnavi_ …”

“So I just wasn’t thinking, and then he flipped the fuck out and I want to help but it’ll only make it worse if I go back in, and I don’t know what to _do!_ I’m just sitting outside his bedroom goin' crazy.”

“Okay,” she says in the briskest, most Let’s Get Shit Done voice she can muster, “first you can call his mom and let her know you’re with him if you ain’t done that yet, I bet that’ll make her feel better. See if he’s got food in the house for when he’s cooled down enough to eat, you know how much worse he is when he skips meals. And, uh, I hate to say it, but maybe make the place a little safer, if you get me? I’m sure he was bluffing but...”

“But not worth the risk,” Usnavi says grimly, but at least he doesn’t sound hysterical any more with a task to do. “I can do all that. Can I call you back afterwards? Or, um, Facetime maybe? I know it’s early there but... I really need to see you right now.”

“Yeah, s’long as you remember it’s 6am so my face is straight garbage. No judging.”

She can hear Usnavi laugh a little. “Querida, that’s never gonna be true. I’ll be back in five.”

After he hangs up, she sits tapping her nails restlessly against the back of her phone case. Vanessa hates waiting, and she is _seething._ If she thinks about who’s really to blame for today she’ll fucking scream, so instead all her anger gets divided up between Usnavi, for doing the one damn thing you never do when Ruben’s panicking, and Ruben for aiming exactly where he could hurt Usnavi the most, and at herself for not being where she needs to be right now. Two years ago today her boy was still bleeding, and Vanessa’s on the wrong side of the country.

“What’s that you said about garbage face?” Usnavi says when he calls back, with a wobbly attempt at a smile. Usnavi’s a messy crier and he’s obviously been in tears, face as nearly red as his shirt and wiping his nose on the back of his hand.

“Gross,” she says.

He flips her off, sniffing. “Ay, we said no judging.”

“That was a one-way street. What did Ruben’s mom say?”

“Not much. I only told her I was at his place and he couldn’t talk right now,” Usnavi says. “I thought _‘sup, I had to pocket all his pills while he cried in his room ‘cause I’m a dumbass who gave him a flashback_ might not ease her mind.”

“Good call,” Vanessa says. “And don’t beat yourself up for it, man, you didn't mean for that to happen."

The screen goes black for a second and when it comes back he’s got his hat off, running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know if he thought I was one of them, or if he knew it was me and was scared anyway. I told his mom he’d be safe with me.”

“He is,” Vanessa insists. "It's _their_ fault he's like this, not yours. If it helps, I’ve never felt unsafe around you."

Instead of looking comforted, Usnavi’s face crumples up. “Vanessa, I miss you so much. I need you here for this, _we_ need you. I wish you were home.”

“Me too,” she says, and actually means it. “Alright, al diablo con esto, I’m getting the next flight out.”

“Ain’t you got a shoot tomorrow?”

“Do I look like I give a shit?”

“You can’t just ditch your job.”

Vanessa shrugs. “They can fire me, I don’t care. I’m not gonna sit around doing jack-all in California when I should be there. We stick with you in December, we do the same for Ruben now.”

“Claro que, but think it through, Vanessa. We’re coming to see you in like two weeks, it’ll be so much money to fly back, and how do you think Ruben would feel if you got yourself fired because of him?”

“He’d beat himself up for the next six years, but you literally just said —”

“I wasn’t tryna guilt you back home. At least hold off until tomorrow? If things are still really bad then we’ll talk about it.”

“God, fine! Fine. I guess you’re right.” She flings herself down on her bed and punches the pillow. “This _sucks._ I don’t know what I can do about it from all the way over here.”

Usnavi lies down too, on his side with his face resting on his arm like he’s in bed next to her. “Just…stay on the phone with me? Stay with me. Please.”

“I’m always with you, baby,” she says, three thousand miles away, feeling like she broke that promise before she even made it.

***

_The first few days until he finds a place to stay he’s in the clinic or on the streets by day, sleeping on the beach by night. Persistent itch of sand, persistent itch of mild infection, the taste of the air and the constant pull towards the sea. How easy to walk in there and never come out: the saltwater will only sting the wounds for a while, and he’ll be long gone before morning._

Ruben comes to reality alone, presses the heels of his hands to his temples with a sigh. When he leaves his room he almost trips over Usnavi, lying on the floor in the hallway with his phone held up in the air.

“Hey there,” Usnavi says.

“Hey,” Ruben says. “I thought you left.”

“Nope, still here. And I brung you a Vanessa,” Usnavi says, holding the phone out so he can see her. Ruben lifts his hand tiredly in greeting.

“Hey, honey,” Vanessa says. “Rough night?”

“You could say that.”

“Is it okay if we stay?"

With a sigh, he gestures them into his bedroom. “Sure. I’ll be back in a minute, just let me clean up.”

In the bathroom, Ruben carefully washes his hands and winces as he cleans up his arms. They’re gonna sting for a while. He takes out his medical box. There’s an empty space next to the tube of antiseptic cream where he knows he should have at least three packets of acetaminophen. _For fuck’s sake_ , he thinks, taking out the antiseptic and slamming the rest of the box down with a rattle. Of all the people in the world for Ruben to have said that shit to, the absolute last person should be Usnavi. Talk about hitting a sore point. _You’d be too late,_ what the hell is wrong with him?

“I wouldn’t actually have taken the pills,” he says as he goes back to his room. The sleeves of his sweater are sticking to the cream on his arms. Usnavi’s still standing, looking like he’s ready to leave any minute. “You didn’t need to hide them.”

“Gonna keep hold of them anyway, I think,” Usnavi says. Vanessa says nothing. Ruben wants to rile against the babysitting, but accepting it seems like the least he can do.

“Then can I at least take couple? My head is pounding.” He dry-swallows the two tablets Usnavi passes over and sits on the bed with his head in his hands. “Look, I totally crossed a line. I didn’t think before I said it and I went way too far.”

Usnavi nods. “If you need me to talk you off a ledge I’m right there, dude, you know I am, but don’t _ever_ throw that shit in my face again, you hear me?”

“I hear you. I’m sorry,” Ruben says miserably. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. I wanted you to feel how much it hurt, it was a fucked up thing to do.”

Finally sitting on the bed, as far away from Ruben as possible, Usnavi tilts the phone his way so Vanessa’s still in the conversation, but doesn’t make eye contact himself. “I crossed a line too. You told me not to touch you.”

“I deserved it.”

“Hey, no,” Vanessa says. “That ain’t how we do things here, Ruben. No’s no, you don’t have to earn that.”

Usnavi picks at a hole in his jeans, still looking down. “You hit a nerve, and I didn’t want you to keep hurting yourself. But I told you a long time ago I’d only ever touch you if you were okay with it, and I meant that, and I’m sorry. And you’re sorry as well, so how about we both promise never to do it again and call it done?”

Ruben’s fingers are itching. “I don't...I brought up the worst thing that ever happened to you to bring you down to my level, and then we just apologize and move on?” He gestures loosely between the three of them, frustrated tears coming to his eyes. “The best I could get for twenty-seven years was a friend who didn’t give a shit if I got killed so long as I helped him first, and what, two years later I’m meant to believe _this_ is how my life is now? Just everyone being nice and forgiving and having great sex and all this happy ever after bullshit? That’s not how it works! I drag you both down and I keep fucking up all the time and nothing happens, you’re not even mad at me, and I don’t _understand it!”_

Usnavi says, “I am a little bit mad at you, actually. But that ain’t a priority right now, making sure you get through today is. I ain’t like him, Ruben. Just because I’m upset don’t mean it’s something you gotta pay for.”

“You think you’re the only one who had to get used to this?” Vanessa says. “Do you know how long it took me to stop tryna make Usnavi want to break up with me, because I thought it was inevitable and wanted to get it over with? And that he’d never say anything because he thought if he called me out I’d leave him? We nearly torched the whole relationship before it even got started before we figured out that apologizing is better than mind-games.”

That catches Ruben by surprise. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, well, it’s kinda embarrassing how bad we were at it, looking back. This is newer for you, you missed seeing a lot of the mistakes we made at the start. And god knows you’ve got every right to be fucked up, but you ain’t as original as you think."

“We don’t wanna fight over mistakes or make each other feel like shit for screwing up sometimes,” Usnavi says. “We wanna work things out, because we love each other. We love _you_.”

“You shouldn’t,” Ruben whispers. “I’m no good for you, I’m poison. You were better off before I was here.”

“We love you,” Vanessa repeats, pointing at him angrily. “God, I don’t know how else to make you see it.”

“If it’s not me then it’s gonna be them, Jason was the good one and look what he was capable of, if Ian—if Ian finds out I’m here, that I have people who care about me…”

_I wonder if they’ll even miss you. Ha, maybe when I get back to America Dr Cole should drop in and give his condolences, what do you think? What flowers does your mom like?_

“Ian’s gone, honey. He’s dead.”

 _“_ You don’t _understand!_ He’ll find out, he’ll come for me like he did on the plane, I tried to get out and there’s no way out. You don’t know what he said he’d to do to me if I ever came back.”

_Pity we don’t have more time here, there’s so much fun we could have together. Wanna hear what’ll happen next time you try and screw me over?_

“Ruben, stay with us.” Usnavi’s bouncing his leg nervously, the bed shaking with the movement. “Come back, querido, you’re all mixed up. It’s 2018, you’re in New York. Ian’s gone and he’s not coming back.”

Ruben closes his eyes, shaking his head in despair. _You think this is the worst I can do? This is nothing._ You’re _nothing._ “I’m not worth this. He’ll kill you both, and he’ll keep me alive just for _fun_ _and_ I won’t do it again, I can’t _,_ I’ll kill myself before I let him touch me again.”

“Usnavi, open the curtains,” Vanessa says urgently.

“¿Qué?”

“Sun’s risen where you are,” she says, Usnavi’s footsteps already thudding across the room halfway through the sentence and then there’s light, the color behind Ruben’s closed eyes a weak shift from black to reddish.

“Ruben, mira,” Vanessa coaxes. “Morning. He can’t be here if it’s morning, that’s how it works, ¿verdad? It’s daylight out. Look.”

 _Look at me. You don’t get to hide from this._ Look _at me!_

“I don’t want to,” Ruben weeps. “Please, I don’t want to.”

“It’s nine-thirty, you can check the clock,” Usnavi says. “He won't get you. You can trust us.”

_Do you trust me?_

_No!_

_Close enough._

Does he trust them?

He opens his eyes, and finds morning as promised. The room is bright and the clock reads 9:37. Usnavi’s still holding onto one of the curtains, rubbing the fabric between his finger and thumb, and Ruben gives up. It’s too much to ask anyone but he’s so tired, it’s too much for him alone.

“If…if he did come back, I wouldn’t be able to stay here," he says defeatedly. "I’d have to run.”

“We know.”

“Would you stay with me? Even then?”

“We’d go anywhere with you,” Usnavi says, and Vanessa says, “come here, querido.”

Usnavi holds out the phone as Ruben approaches and, after a second, takes his hat off and silently offers that too. Ruben takes both, fitting the hat on his head and cradling the phone with as much care as he would holding Vanessa for real. She places her hand over her heart, an indescribable look on her face that makes Ruben mimic the gesture unconsciously, his palm dead centre over the place where Ian made the first incision. It hurts again now, but not like before. Through the window at his side he can see the city, New York that belongs to Usnavi and Vanessa, New York where it’s safe at least for today. New York, where Ruben belongs now, where he survived another night: February’s skies are dark and dim, but undeniably it’s morning. It’s daylight out.


End file.
